A superscalar processing system includes multiple execution units for simultaneously executing multiple instructions. Some processing systems support speculative branching. Accordingly, in response to a conditional branch instruction, the processing system speculatively branches its processing to a selected one of two or more possible target sequences of instructions before the processing system actually determines whether the selected sequence of instructions is in fact the correct sequence.
If the processing system later determines the speculative branch is correct, the processing system continues processing the selected sequence of instructions. By comparison, if the processing system later determines the branch is wrong, the processing system begins processing one or more correct instructions. According to typical previous techniques, in such a situation, the processing system delays processing a correct instruction even after determining the branch is wrong.
Thus, a need has arisen for a processing system and method of operation, in which, relative to typical previous techniques, the processing system reduces a delay in processing a correct instruction after determining a branch is wrong.